The silent brigade needs to be heard

Michael Shmith

LEND me your ears, or let me lend you mine. It is Friday morning at The Age, and this is what I am hearing. The main melody is human speech - a formless symphony of droning, murmuring, chattering, exclamations and giggles that will only intensify as the day goes on. Over this pipes the occasional synthetic ringtone of a mobile, which gives way either to a ''ping!'' of a freshly laid message or to a sharp increase in vocal volume as the instrument is answered: ''Hello? Oh, HI!'' We are all taking the call.

Hark! A new theme: Dalek voices, sharpened by static, are sounding from the speakerphone from Sydney, merging with a lower, simmering harmonic. This fresh antiphony is the news conference, with offstage interstate participants in counterpoint with their sonorous Melbourne colleagues. All the while, there is the ceaseless obbligato for countless computer keyboards. If this were Tuesday, there would be the obligatory emergency signal test, with its accompanying, and mercifully brief, hoots and whoops.

Such sounds are part of my working life, and, as such, I tend to consign them to the back of the brain. Or, if they become too intrusive (say, if that repetitious plunk-pluck ringtone goes on for too long), I reach for the special headphones which, at the flick of a switch, muffle most ambient noise.

These aural reminiscences came to mind when I read that V/Line is experimenting with quiet carriages on seven of its trains. For the uninitiated, this does not mean the carriage itself is any less noisy than the others on the train - rather, the quiet occurs inside. Mobiles to silent, please, and turn down that music and the old vox humana. And enjoy your journey.

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Quiet carriages are not exactly new and not exactly quiet. Over the past few months in England, I frequently took the train from Yorkshire to London. While the quiet carriages are not quite so noisy as the normal ones, you still have to endure endless announcements over the PA, mobile calls (alas, silent mode does not apply to the braying fool's ''I'm on the train!'' mantra), the buzzing of cheap music through headphones, the prattle of your neighbours and the crinkle of sweet bags or sandwich packets.

The terrible truth is that not only is noise inescapable, it's becoming more pervasive and harder to get rid of. In fact, we are louder than we've ever been, and, worse, most people don't seem to care about it. Those making noise don't have the inclination or the manners to realise it might cause offence; and those enduring it usually have to take the initiative - and summon the courage - to ask someone to please turn it down or off.

This week, I was interviewing someone outdoors at Southbank to a melange of music from various outdoor restaurants, including ours. Forget al fresco smoke and instead imagine the aurally noxious combination of Andrea Bocelli, Beyonce and Vivaldi's Four Seasons jostling for ear space. Even after I asked for it to be turned down, it was only Bocelli who vanished.

When one anti-noise advocate described the last century as ''the loudest in the history of the world'', you have to believe him. In Ancient Rome, which resounded to the sounds of clashing gladiators and senatorial stabbing parties, chariots were forbidden to rattle over the cobbles at night. Even Christians and conspirators needed their eight hours.

Contrast that imperial edict with this week's news that New York's transportation department is removing all the city's ''Don't Honk'' signs because the law has been impossible to enforce. This colossal admission of defeat, possibly greeted with a fanfare of horns from every SUV and stretch Hummer in the grid, signifies another triumph of noise over the tenets of sanity.

There is no such thing as the perfect silence, and, if there were, somebody would spoil it by yelling, ''Just listen to that!''. So what hope have we in bringing noise under control?

Between silence and cacophony, though, there must be a neutral territory where sounds and quietude can exist in relative harmony. Without it, things will only get louder.

Public awareness is a good thing. We know about, and are responsive to, the perils of tobacco, the risks of alcohol and the problems with gambling - issues of life-and-death, to be sure. Noise pollution, while not so dangerous, is just as insidious a threat to wellbeing.

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